“Shaddap,” Bat hissed at her. “I can’t hear him with all this racket. Shaddap!”
“It’s my back,” she sobbed, screamed again.
Half-way down I crawled into the body of the man I had shot. I paused, touched him, tried to satisfy myself that he was dead. He didn’t move as I pawed him over in the sticky darkness. I decided to crawl over him.
Bat said to the girl. “I’ll finish you if you don’t shaddap.”
I was nearly on him now. He couldn’t hear me because of the noise the girl was making.
I heard him curse. The girl suddenly stopped screaming.
“What are you doing?” she moaned. “Take that gun away. Bat!” Her voice shot up in a shrill note of terror.
A single crack of gunfire exploded close to me. There was silence.
I caught a glimpse of Bat as he moved, lifted my gun, fired. He must have seen my movement for he fired at the same time. His bullet ploughed a weal along my cheek. I watched him. He rose up, tottered back, his gun slipping out of his hand. I fired again. The slug socked into him, throwing him back. He fell down, stretched out.
I pulled out my electric torch. The beam lit up a nightmare scene. The girl lay on her side, bent back, half her face was shattered by the heavy bullet from Bat’s gun. Bat lay near her, his hand touched her naked foot. Blood seeped out of him like water from over-boiled cabbage I turned him over. He moved, blinked his eyes, snarled at me.